A Planet to Return To
by That's Professor Hawke
Summary: Katherine is an unremarkable and ordinary girl who by cosmic accident was born a Fadeshifter. And now, an extradimensional being wants her help. To gain the strength she needs, she must fight and survive on a Planet she once believed to be a mere story...
1. I: A Spirit's Plea

**Author's Note:** This is, whether you believe me or not, the last new "self-insert" story I'll be starting until all four of the ones I'm currently working on are finished. In this case calling it "self-insert" is a misnomer, as Nathan Redgrave doesn't appear in this story and is only referenced by way of plot connection. This story is, however, vital to the underlying plot of Nathan's other stories (which are, at present, _Mass Effect: Insertion_, _From Beyond the Beyond_, and _My Very Own Crystal Legend_).

I'll be working on these stories simultaneously, as they are all interconnected. I will, however, do my best to ensure that all relevant points are explained sufficiently during each "series" within this series, so that (for example) a fan of _Dragon Age_ that detests _Final Fantasy XIII_ need not read the latter series in order to comprehend the self-inserts written for the former.

For more on what I have planned for this "Fadeshifter" series, see my profile page.

**Disclaimer:** The _Final Fantasy_ franchise belongs to Square Enix, and it's sufficiently well-known that you shouldn't need me to actually say that unless you've been living under a rock for the past decade-and-a-half. As an entirely unrelated note, is it too much to ask that someone out there with some modicum of writing talent compose a decent _Final Fantasy _crossover fic that doesn't revolve around ZOMGSLASH? That'd be great, thanks.

**~V~**

**A Planet to Return To  
**- A _Final Fantasy VII _fan-novel -  
by  
That's Professor Hawke

**~V~**

**- Chapter One -  
**"**A Spirit's Plea"**

**~V~**

My name's Katherine, last name Gainsborough. I like that last name, as unwieldy as it is, because I also happen to be a bit of a gaming geek and sharing a name with one of my favorite characters is pretty coolsauce. You can call me Kat or Kathy, if you want.

So I guess I should describe what I see in the mirror when I get up in the morning, huh? Apart from the bed-hair, that is — it's brown, by the way, and falls to about the back of my shoulderblades. I don't do it any particular style, just brush it back and let it sit. I'm fifteen, so I haven't really grown in yet (at least, I hope there's still growing to do), and I'm a tiny bit on the plain side. Glasses don't help much, nor does the fact that I can't be bothered to waste time applying make-up. And don't get me wrong, I like my glasses, but I'd prefer not to have to wear them. I'm _way _farsighted, though; can't see anything less than five yards away without my glasses. I'm at that age where the occasional pimple pops up, but I don't mind. I prefer to think of them as disgusting little wards that repel the attentions of the berks that go to school with me. Oh, did I mention I'm that quiet girl who sits at the back of the class alone and reads while everyone else is talking about various sex-related things? I'm the geek of my particular year. Actually I think it's a statistical anomaly that nobody in my year is more stereotypically geeky than me, but there it is. I guess that the easiest way to describe my position on the social food chain would be "that girl that's so unremarkable and ordinary that nobody ever remembers her."

And that suits me just fine: I'm not a very social creature. There're one or two girls in class that I strike up conversation with, but mostly I just keep to myself. There was this one bitch who tried to troll me in my Freshman year for a while, but she gave up when it finally clicked that I didn't give a shit. I don't know why, but I grew up not really caring what other people think of me. I guess the wires in my brain that connect the rest of it to my Peer Pressure Response Function got crossed or something in the womb. I just never cared to care about stuff like that.

In my spare time, I mostly play videogames. My mom thinks I should be doing girlier things than that, she's so old-fashioned, but my dad was a different story. He always used to buy me games when I got good grades and when mom would grouse about how I never touched those Barbie dolls she got me when I was five, daddy took me aside later and told me that what I had fun with was my business and I shouldn't let anybody tell me otherwise. So for me it was Super Nintendo and Sony PlayStation growing up. I'm a really big fan of _Metroid_, _Castlevania,_ and _Final Fantasy, _have been since I played 'em on my old SNES. Which still works after having been dropped down the stairs multiple times, by the way. Odd that newer hardware doesn't seem to be quite as resilient.

It's that third one that I'm looking forward to at this particular moment, as a matter of fact. _Final Fantasy VII_, actually. I know it's not as good as everyone seems to think it is, yeah, definitely _way _over-rated, but it's still my favorite in the series. I just love the characters and the steam-punk atmosphere of Midgar and have you ever just picked up the game for no other purpose than to play through the first eight hours because I have and... and I was about to gush at random again. Gotta stop doing that...

I know you're probably thinking _oh great another fangirl_ but I swear it's not like that! I don't give two shits about how "bishi" a character is. The fuck does "bishi" even mean, anyway? And if I see one more fanfiction that features Cloud and Sephiroth getting jiggy with it, I swear I am going to reach through the Internet and choke a bitch.

No, I just really love the game. Could do without the stat glitch that makes Magic Defense an utterly useless stat, but meh, nothing's perfect.

Right now I'm just leaning against the window of my schoolbus, looking out but not really seeing any of the houses or trees that pass us by as it takes the present boatload of LOUDNESS back to Beverly. That's where I live, or have lived for the last couple o' years. Moved here after daddy died. Mom's still bugging me to do girlier things. Keeps getting me stuff like make-up or clothes for my birthdays and Christmases. I don't really like my mom. She's a bit homely, to be honest, and I always get the impression that she's trying to _live through me_. Like she can be vicariously beautiful if she pretties me up enough. She hasn't done anything to show that she really cares what _I _want in years, and she didn't seem all that sad when daddy died, either.

Aerith Gainsborough seems more like family to me than my mom does. No, that's not a statement about how much I like Aerith Gainsborough. It's one about how little I like my mom. We on the same page, here? Good.

As we drive past a church on the way to the bus stop, my eyes linger on a nearby street: the place where a highly mysterious death occurred not two weeks ago. Two weeks ago — the end of August, just before the start of school. A twenty-three-year-old man who still lived with his mother, stepfather, and two brothers. Apparently, he died in his sleep while napping at the kitchen table one afternoon and no cause of death could be determined. I don't remember his name; I don't usually pay attention to current events, but this one caught my interest because it sounded weirdly like _Avada Kedavra_, you know, like the Harry Potter books. It's a silly thought, I know, but I just latch onto fictional things that way; I'm always comparing the real world to them.

A moment later the bus turns onto the street it stops on, and that particular street and its neighboring church are wrenched from my view. I blink a few times in an effort to pull myself back to the real world, and then pick my backpack up off of the seat next to me. The entire time, my Walkman's been blaring videogame music at random into my ear. I like videogame music; it doesn't think I give a shit about sex or drugs. I also have a Walkman instead of an iPod because the Walkman was cheaper. Plays mp3s and stores pictures just fine, too, thank you kindly. Maybe I'll pick up an iThing when I have money to blow, but for now, I'm fine with my Walkman.

So I'm listening to the likes of _Metal Gear Solid 2_'s main theme and a remixed version of the _Super Metroid_ opening track as I walk back to my house, which is actually halfway across town from here. I don't mind long walks. Since my recreational time is spent on things that have me sitting on my ass and moving nothing but my hands or my eyeballs, I need to get exercise somehow, right? Walking is kind of like taking a shower, really. You can zone out almost completely and before you know it, you're done. The only difference is that there isn't any temptation to touch yourself in unmentionable places.

And look there, see? It's like I said... start walking, zone out, and we're done. That's my house, over there, you see it, right? It's the one that looks like all the others around it. An unremarkable home for an unremarkable person. And all the safer for it; the less remarkable a house is compared to the ones next to it, the less likely it is to be targeted by burglars. That's my reasoning, anyway. Doesn't stop me from appreciating the burglar alarm mom had installed, though.

Speaking of mom, she's out for a few days. Thank God. That means I can marathon _Final Fantasy VII_ without enduring her pointed asides about how teenage girls in _her _day —

I stop, blink, and stare at my bedroom window. And from inside it, a very young boy is staring back. Catching my eyes, he places a finger to his mouth in a gesture of silence, and then beckons me toward him before letting the dark-red curtain fall back over the window.

A little boy, in my room? What would that kid be doing there? How would he have gotten in without triggering the alarm and utterly destroying the eardrums of the whole neighborhood? ...Who is he, anyway? We don't have any cousins or relatives at that age, as far as I know, and mom would have said something if —

I stop speculating and hitch my backpack a little more securely onto the shoulder it dangles from, and then soldier up the walk to the front door. I extract the house key from my pocket, open the door, and without preamble turn to the button-pad on the wall inside. I push the door closed with my foot as I punch in the passcode, and the tinny whistling sound that means the alarm is readying itself to blare stops. Then I turn to the stairs and there he is.

He can't be any older than five, but the expression on his face is one of world-weary melancholy. He's dressed in simple clothes, black pants and a light-gray t-shirt, and his clear blue eyes stare intently at me from beneath slightly unruly black bangs.

"I've been waiting, Katherine Gainsborough," he says after a moment of silence, "and I... need your help."

"Okay," I murmur, "who are you, and how'd you get in? Is there anyone else in here with you, kiddo?"

"I'm actually a few centuries old," says the boy with an entirely straight face, "but I wanted to take a form that was... non-threatening. To show you that I mean you no harm."

"Uh... huh," I say.

The boy smiles a sad sort of long-suffering smile and then holds up his hand, palm facing the ceiling. "Since you don't believe me..." he says, "here is a small proof that what I say is truth."

I look at his empty hand and am at the point of offering some response, either condescending or witty, when a ball of flame ignites in his palm. I shriek and drop my backpack, wincing in pain as the strap catches the curve of my shoulder on the way down.

"My apologies," says the boy, and the ball of flame vanishes. It leaves his hand quite unblemished. "I knew that would startle you, but I need you to take me seriously. Can we speak more in your room? I would rather keep the rest of this private."

Goggling at the boy for several long seconds, I finally gulp down the lump that had been obstructing my throat and stammer out, "Y-yeah. Good idea. I'll... I'll be up in a minute, when my heart stops trying to shatter my ribs, yeah?"

"Take all the time you need," says the boy, and then he drifts up the stairs and toward my bedroom.

What the... _what the fuck is going on?_

I slowly wind down from the point of hyperventilation and simply gape up at the place where the boy had been standing. My first thought is that I'm having a very lucid dream, maybe I fell asleep on the bus or something, but no; the small, lingering sting on my right shoulder tells me that I'm still very much awake. Please tell me I'm not hallucinating... maybe it was a trick of some sort...

My thoughts briefly flash to the mysterious death of that man on the other side of town, and my random thought that it sounded like the Killing Curse from _Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire_. My blood runs cold as it occurs to me that I might not be as far off the mark as I thought I was. Does this kid have something to do with that...?

_But, _I think, shaking my head to dislodge that dark thought, _he said he needs my help. Maybe I should hear him out._

Nodding shakily to myself as if in agreement with some other person, I look up at the stairs one more time, but it's another five minutes of internal back-and-forth that I find the willpower to put one foot in front of the other and walk the distance from the front door to my upstairs bedroom

**~V~**

The room in question is as plain as I am. There are a few random little posters and such pinned to the walls, ripped from strategy guides and the like, such as the one of Zack Fair that adorns the door to the closet. That one's from _Crisis Core_, obviously. Didn't much care for that game, but the story was alright. I just wish Square would get off their butts and remake _Final Fantasy VII_ already — OH LOOK THAT KID WITH MAGIC POWERS IS SITTING ON MY BED.

I shut the door with a snap, my nerves kicking back into high gear again, but I note that the boy is sitting on his hands as if to avoid giving me the impression that he might do something to hurt me. His eyes were cast downward until I entered the room; when he hears the door close, he looks up imploringly at me and I feel some of my mistrust melt away.

Just some, of course. I'm not naïve, just socially disinclined.

"So," I begin, trying and failing to keep the tremor out of my voice, "who are you, and what do you want?"

"I am..." the boy said hesitantly, "...I don't have a name, actually. And it's more a question of 'what' I am, which isn't something I can explain completely in terms you'd comprehend."

"Try," I say, more harshly than I mean to. Now that the initial fear has passed, my daddy's genes are coming out: he was slow to anger, but when it happened, his anger was _legendary_. I don't quite have that, but I can be pretty forceful when I need to be.

The boy tilts his head thoughtfully to one side, obviously trying to figure out how best to make his case. "I guess you could say I'm a kind of... spirit," he says.

I glimpse the impression his five-year-old bottom is making as he sits on my bed and say, "Funny, you look a bit solid for one of those."

"This is just a form I'm taking for the moment," he says. "I don't really exist in this world, but I can... manifest. Briefly, but not freely. And I need to be near a certain type of person in order to achieve even this much."

"Do you?" I say skeptically. "And what sort of person would that be?"

"Someone who is naturally attuned to the layers of the multiverse," he says. "In short, someone like you or that man who died so mysteriously a few weeks back."

"So you _do _have something to do with that!" I say, simultaneously pointing an accusing finger at the boy and taking an involuntarily step backward — colliding with my own bedroom door in the process. I barely even notice the dull throb at the back of my skull... I could have a fucking _murderer _in my room, for God's sake!

"I'm not the one behind that," the boy says softly. "There are other... spirits... with intentions and methods less agreeable than mine. That man was taken from this world by one I know well; in human terms, the closest term for this spirit would be my 'twin sister.'"

"Twin sister?" I ask. "Why would spirits have siblings? Or genders, for that matter?"

"We don't," he says. "We... divide, when we reproduce. Like cells in the body. And we aren't quite immortal, either. This particular spirit has... lost her grip on her own mind, you could say."

"And started killing people in their sleep, is that it?" I ask.

"No," murmurs the boy. "No, our unwitting Fadeshifter isn't dead... he was simply 'extracted' from his body on this world and made to manifest in another."

I blink. "Fadeshifter? What?"

"This will take some explaining," says the boy. "There are more worlds than this one, you see; other timelines, other universes... divergences within worlds, other worlds entirely with their own divergent timelines. A Fadeshifter... such as Nathan Redgrave —"

"Who?"

"The young man who supposedly died in his sleep," says the spirit-boy patiently. "He changed his name when he surfaced in another world. I have no idea why he did so; his original name is far less likely to draw unwelcome attention. He calls himself Nathan Redgrave, however."

"I... see," I think. The name "Redgrave" rings a bell, but I can't think straight enough to recall where I've heard it before.

"A Fadeshifter," says the spirit, "is capable of using the realm of dreams as a crossroads to pass from one plane of existence to the next. The man who 'died' in his sleep was actually forced rather crudely into activating that dormant power. He is the first Fadeshifter of such potential to have been born in this world for quite some time; for some reason, people on this level aren't as often attuned to the Tower as in other worlds."

"Attuned to the... tower?" I ask. "What tower?"

The spirit-boy shakes his head. "The Dark Tower isn't important anymore. Another Fadeshifter has already remedied that particular problem. All you need to know is that the Tower — as it is often called in certain worlds — represents the lynch-pin at the center of all worlds. If it falls, everything else falls with it."

"But that 'problem,'" I say, "has already been 'handled?' By who? What problem, exactly?"

"It's too long a story to go into right now, and I only have time enough to explain that which pertains specifically to what I must ask of _you_," says the boy in a slightly-harassed voice. "You see, I need a Fadeshifter with very specific knowledge. My sister did, for what she wishes to accomplish, as well; that's why she abducted Redgrave, you see. I'm not..." the boy shakes his head, standing up, and looks at me with a fierce kind of pride burning in his eyes, "I'm not like her."

"In what way?" I ask.

"I'm not a kidnapper!" he says harshly. "I don't just take people and make them do whatever I want. I may be a spirit, but _people _are still _people_. They deserve at least that much respect. So I'm here, standing in front of you, Katherine, and I'm _asking _for your help."

"I'll need a bit more information than that," I say softly, raising my hands in a calming gesture. The boy in front of me was so composed until a moment ago... his sudden distress is kind of alarming, really.

"Of course," he says, obviously trying to master himself. "You have to understand—I wouldn't ask this kind of... of lifetime commitment of one so young if I had any other choice in the matter, but those few Fadeshifters in your world who might have fit the bill either have too much to leave behind, or are already beyond my reach... as is Mr. Redgrave."

"Lifetime — ?" I yelp. "Just what are you asking me to do? What do you mean, 'too much to leave behind'?"

The boy looks at me with those sad eyes and says, "First, I need to explain exactly what you are..."

"A... Fadeshifter, right?" I say. "I'm attuned to this tower thing, or something."

"'Attuned' is a word for it," murmurs the boy. "The truth of the matter is that Fadeshifters are a kind of cosmic accident. There's no physical way to tell that you are one, but in times of emotional duress, or if exposed to certain spiritual stimuli, their attunement to the multiverse hits such a fever pitch that they sometimes involuntarily impose themselves on other worlds or timelines. There are also those rare few who can use that ability at will. The most common Fadeshifters will enter a dormant, coma-like state and manifest in other worlds for a time, only regaining life and awareness in their home dimension if that manifestation is somehow returned to its place of origin. The kind of Fadeshifter that Nathan Redgrave is, however..."

He frowns, and after a moment continues:

"That's not important at this moment. Your own gift isn't as rare, but it's more potent than ordinary Fadeshifters, who often go through life without even discovering their dormant power. You have a strong connection to the fabric of the multiverse; with time and experience, you could become a force to be reckoned with."

"And do what, exactly?"

"Stop my sister," says the boy, "who so callously rips innocent people from their homes and lives and sets them adrift in the seas of chaos just to _see what they do._"

"Can't _you _stop your sister on your own?" I ask. "Or get other spirits to help you do it?"

"I can no more kill another spirit," says the boy solemnly, "than you can will your own heart to cease its beating. My very nature prevents me from doing so."

"So..." I say incredulously, "you want me... Plain Jane little old me, the fifteen-year-old girl with no fighting skills or remarkable talents _at all_, to fight some almighty sister spirit of yours, is that about right?"

"Not yet," says the boy, "or nearly so soon. Your gift, like Redgrave's, allows you to assimilate various... powers, skills, or abilities, merely by exposing yourself to a given level of the Tower. Before you even think of confronting my sister, you will need to spend years amassing power and experience in a number of different worlds. That is why I say this is a 'lifetime commitment.'"

I bite my lip. It seems so fantastical, what this boy is saying, but I can't help but believe what he says is true... or at least that _he _believes it to be.

"Katherine," says the boy, "I chose you because any of the others I might seek aid from have too much to lose by helping me. Families. Friends. Lovers. I've watched you for a time and I know that... forgive me... that the only person you cared so strongly about has already departed this world."

I flinch.

"...that is why..." he continues softly, "...I cannot bring myself to ask anyone else for this. Choosing to help me means leaving everything you know, your life in this world and all the people in it. It means leaving everything behind —"

"I don't care about that," I say, perhaps with a bit more finality than I really mean. "Just tell me what you want me to do and let me think."

The boy sighs, turns around, and says, "Should you choose to help me, then the next time you go to sleep you will wake in a different place. Different, but I promise, familiar. You already know enough to survive. For the time being, all I ask is that you do whatever you believe best and place your focus on becoming stronger. In time, you will experience an unpleasant... tingling sensation. I recommend staying out of any dangerous situations until that happens; it would be bad if you assimilated in the middle of a life-or-death fight, or while climbing a mountain, or in any situation where losing control of your body for a few moments might cause you injury. After that, you will have gained a power normally possessed only by denizens of the world I place you in."

"And what world will I be 'placed' in?" I say.

"You won't believe me until you see it," the boy says flatly. "But the world I intend to place you in is considered fictional in this universe. The tale that unfolds in that world is the one of Cloud Strife and his companions as they fight to save their Planet from the man called Sephiroth."

My eyes bug out. "Y-you're shitting me," I laugh nervously. "You've got to be... totally shitting me. That's impossible."

"And yet, it is," remarks the spirit-boy with a shrug of his shoulders, turning back to me and plopping back down the bed with a perplexed expression on his face. "Even we of the between-places don't really understand it. Are these worlds a product of the stories that mirror them, or are the stories echoes caused by the worlds themselves? Some of the people who have written or developed the media that portray these worlds may have been Fadeshifters; perhaps that is part of it. But it remains a mystery to all of us."

"So you're telling me you want me to leave my life behind, go to the universe of _Final Fantasy VII_, and train myself up to kill some sadistic spirit-woman who kidnaps people and drops them off in other universes to fend for themselves. That's the long and short, right?"

The boy looks at me for a moment, his expression one of nervous anticipation, and says, "Yes, I suppose it is."

I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and open them.

"What about mom?" I ask. "What will... happen here, if I go?"

"You will be found wherever you fall asleep, apparently dead," the boy says. "I will, however, falsify a cause of death, so as not to encourage a connection to the mysterious death two weeks ago. It wouldn't do to give people the impression that there's some undetectable disease going around and killing supposedly healthy people, after all..."

I lean back against the door, wringing my hands nervously. If he's telling the truth, if he's... really being honest, then if I sit here and do nothing, other people will suffer and keep on suffering. And this spirit-boy will have to ask someone else to make this leap, sacrifice so much more than I would have to, just because I was too chickenshit to make the leap myself, but —

"Kid... spirit," I say, "I don't think I have it in me to be some kind of hero."

The spirit smiles. "You might be surprised," he says, "by what one can find in oneself if one puts her mind to it. I have faith in you, Katherine; you should have faith in yourself."

I exhale, and think of my mother. Bitterly, I wonder what she'll really be sad about if she finds me dead in my room when she gets back. Then I say, "Alright. If you're telling the truth... if I wake up in the _Final Fantasy VII_ universe, I'll do what you say. I'll... I'll get tougher, so I can stop this sister of yours."

A look of relief, blessed relief, flits across the spirit-boy's face. Then he says, "I thank you, Katherine Gainsborough. The spirits will sing of you until the end of ages in remembrance of your courage."

"Do I at least get to choose where or when I'll wake up?" I ask resignedly.

"My ability to direct you to specific times or places will be quite limited until you gain the ability to direct yourself," says the spirit. "I have, however, prepared a connection to the city of Midgar that should coincide with the beginning of the tale you know."

"Is that the beginning of _Final Fantasy VII_, or the beginning of one of its stupid little spin-offs?" I ask in a somewhat deadpan voice, hoping to God it's the former.

The boy smiles and says, "Not one of the, ah, 'stupid little spin-offs,' I assure you. Just... one thing. Whatever you choose to do, however you may... attempt to interfere, make sure of one thing."

"What one thing is that?"

"Don't die," he says seriously. "If you die, no matter how much good you do or how noble the cause, that will be the end, and my sister will have all the more time to work her mischief. You need to stay alive at any cost, do you understand?"

"I understand," I say after a second's hesitation... after all, why is he telling me the bloody fucking obvious?

"Good," he says. "Then we part for now. And when next you rest... your life here will end. I recommend placing any objects you wish to carry with you on your person before you fall asleep. They will make the transition with you, don't worry about that."

"Okay, got it," I say, but before I can start to list off things to take, my eyes bug out.

The spirit-boy is gone. He didn't fade away, or dissolve, or anything. He's just gone.

I'm dimly aware that my entire body is tingling with pure nervous energy now. It's ridiculous, outlandish, farfetched, like the start of every bad self-insert fanfiction on the Internet, but there it is.

I don't know how to feel about this. I don't even know how to _start_ feeling about this. But after a space of time that seems like an eternity, I decide it's best to just roll with the punches until I do.

I have a Self-Insert Survival Kit to pack.

**~V~**

**Author's Note #2:** To be clear, this character is not a self-insert character; I am a guy. The closest thing to a "self-"insert is Nathan Redgrave. Katherine Gainsborough is simply an OC.

Just figured I'd clear up any confusion on that point.


	2. II: Self Insert Survival Kit

**Disclaimer:** The _Final Fantasy_ franchise belongs to Square Enix, and it's sufficiently well-known that you shouldn't need me to actually say that unless you've been living under a rock for the past decade-and-a-half. As an entirely unrelated note, is it too much to ask that someone out there with some modicum of writing talent compose a decent _Final Fantasy _crossover fic that doesn't revolve around ZOMGSLASH? That'd be great, thanks.

**~V~**

**- Chapter Two -  
**"**Self-Insert Survival Kit"**

**~V~**

The first thing I do is dump out the contents of my backpack on my bed. It's a roomy thing, mostly because my school doesn't give us nearly enough time to get from one class to our lockers and then to the next class unless we just get lucky enough to have a really convenient schedule arrangement; I never actually use my locker, so all of my textbooks go with me everywhere.

Yeah, it's a really heavy bag. Is it funny or sad that it'll probably be lighter when I pack it for trans-dimensional travel than when I pack it for high school? I'm leaning towards "sad," personally.

So I dump out my textbooks — most of them are battered as all the hells; Palmyra High ain't exactly a high-society institution — and take a few seconds to unceremoniously stash them under my bed. If I wake up in the morning to find that this was all just some highly elaborate joke, it'll be the work of two minutes to put it all back in. Once that's done with, I straighten up, fold my arms, and stare at my flaccid backpack as if waiting for it to tell me what to take with me.

The backpack tells me nothing. Nadda. Zip.

Fucking useless piece of —

Right. Food and drink. Got it.

A minute later I've dug a few bags of trail mix and an armful of soup cans out of the cabinets in the kitchen and I've piled them on the bed next to the bag. Another trip to the kitchen and I come back with five bottles of springwater. Now what other necessities will I —?

Clothes. Toiletries. An extra pair of shoes and my spare set of glasses.

Done.

I survey the necessities I've set out on the bed, and tap my foot, eyes closed, thinking...

Would it be a good idea to bring the games along? That could go sour REALLY fast, but on the other hand, if the truth comes out and I need to prove it...

I slowly meander over to my dresser and run my hand thoughtfully over my slim-model PlayStation 3, and then over my newly-purchased PS Vita. Both systems had pretty much every PS1 game I own on them. If I bring them, I suppose I might have to get some techie to work out how to properly power the things with the _Final Fantasy VII_ world's electrical setup... but... if it falls into the wrong hands...

…

Ah, hell, I could use a dose of home for posterity. These games are just about the only things I'll really miss when I go, why _not _take 'em with me? I'll just delete the _Final Fantasy VII_ games off the hard-drive if it looks like taking those along might not be such a hot idea.

So with that decided I go about the process of unplugging the console and sorting out the wires. I pack the PS3, PS Vita, two controllers, and all of the assorted wiring away as neatly as I can and then I put in all of the essentials. There's a bit of room left in the bag, so I cast around for some lightweight stuff to take along. Eventually I settle for a few paperback books and the most lethal-looking knife I can find in my kitchen (just in case I need to defend myself before I get my hands on a proper weapon). Before I pack the knife, I coil some twine around the blade as a sort of makeshift sheath, to prevent damage to the bag or its contents. It's the best thing I can find on hand.

So, let's see... am I forgetting anything? ...Ah, right. Walkman and headphones. I pick them up, coil the earbud wire as neatly around the Walkman as I can, and step out of my room to plug the thing into the computer for a bit. Lord only knows when I'll be able to charge this battery again; may as well go in with a full one.

While the battery's a-chargin' I take a long and ponderous shower that consists mainly of me staring into the abyss while languishing under the hot water. Now that I'm at the point of seeing if that spirit-kid's story is really true, I find myself reluctant to even try for it. And yet... and yet, I'm oddly sleepy for this time of day...

I nod off and jolt awake a second later in the shower, my blood running cold at the thought of waking up in Midgar wearing naught but my mammaries and a smile. That would be amusing... for just about everyone in the multiverse but _me_. Best get the shower over with before that scary thought becomes more real than my modesty can withstand.

I get to the point of actually washing up, then spend a little too much time deciding what to wear. I'm normally not that big on fashion — I mean, I like looking nice as much as the next girl, but for the most part if it fits and functions it's more than enough for me. But I'm about to travel to a new world, for crying out loud. First impressions are important!

I pick out a pair of deep-blue jeans and a white-and-black top that is both comfortable and suitably stylish. This is my favorite outfit, actually; it occurs to me as I blow-dry my hair that I haven't worn it in a couple of months. Well, what better time to dust it off than now?

As I retrieve my then-fully-charged Walkman and store it securely in my pants pocket, I wonder why I'm not more skeptical of what I believe is about to happen. I blame the fireball thing that stupid kid did. That shit'll make you believe anything.

Last but not least, I open the top-left drawer of my dresser and extract two of my favorite little accessories: the first is a replica of the pendant worn by Lightning Farron in _Final Fantasy XIII_, which I put 'round my neck for the first time since I bought it. The second is an expensive little collectible pocketwatch I bought off eBay over the summer, a perfect replica of the State Alchemist watch from _Fullmetal Alchemist._ It should still have more than enough battery life to be getting on with for now...

I clip the chain to a belt loop on my jeans and slip the watch into the inner pocket, leaving the chain to dangle over my right thigh like one of those little chains people latch to their pants because chains are apparently cool or something. I don't really have an opinion on that matter; I just hate wristwatches, you see. They're uncomfortable. And my wrist always winds up getting sweaty when I wear one. Pocketwatches are watches you wear but don't _feel_, and don't sweat on or get ugly tan-lines from. More people need pocketwatches in their lives, fo' shizzle. Sure, they take an extra moment to pull out and check, but are y'all really _that _impatient?

I look myself over in the full-body mirror I have propped up carelessly against the wall across from my bed, and take a deep breath. Right. There's nothing else. Best to just... get this over with.

So I'll let myself drift asleep with my backpack in my arms and I'll wake up either in Midgar or in my bedroom, feeling like an idiot for going to sleep snuggling enough luggage for a three-day camping trip. Actually, now that I think of it, it's a good thing mom's visiting grammy for the weekend, 'cause that second one would be a whole lot more embarrassing if there were someone in the house to see it.

Another deep breath. Right. Take the plunge. Ready. Steady. Turn around. Walk to the bed, lay down. Done. Self-Insert Survival Kit snuggled securely in arms. My heart is pounding against my ribcage and for a moment I'm sure I couldn't possibly fall asleep anytime this _decade_, but... then consciousness drifts away and I'm sleeping... floating, as if my bed's at sea or something...

And the next thing I'm aware of is that the ground is very rough, and not at all comfortable.

I awake with a full-body jerk and find myself snuggled on the ground with my backpack. I sit up, feeling surprisingly energized for someone who just woke up not a second ago, and look around, but it's too dark to see. I put my hand blindly to my face and breath a small sigh of relief to find that neither face nor spectacles have been damaged in my sleep. I look around for the lone source of dull light and crawl towards a small opening.

And I recognize where I am almost without thinking.

I've just crawled out from under a small dome-like structure with the shape of an animal's face built on one side. Directly in front of me is a fence and a whole lot of scrap and rubble. As my eyes adjust to sight, I straighten my glasses and look from one thing to the next: from the ramshackle structures lining the small playground to the swings to the larger animal-dome with the children's slide, the one that Cloud and Aerith sit on when Tifa leaves Sector Seven for the Don's place. Beyond that is a large, solid gateway and a "road" (by which I mean a path of dirt between two heaps of scrap metal) that I know to be the way to the seedy slum called Wall Market. I look up, and instead of sky, I see only cold, gray metal plating concealing the clouds from view... atop which I know to be a prosperous city floating far above the heads of a destitute population.

The gate, then, leads to the Sector Seven slums... to the headquarters of the resistance movement, AVALANCHE.

It's...

It's real. It's fucking _real._

The realization finally crashes in, and I feel my knees collide with the rough, dry dirt beneath them. I sit there, gaping like a fool for a very long time before it finally clicks that I really should get up and figure out where to go and what to do next.

**~V~**

In the end, after sitting on the swing for about half an hour and trying to think my way past a mild sense of panic, I decide the best thing to do would be to go to the Sector Seven slums and check in at the Seventh Heaven bar, if only to get a sense for exactly when I've landed. The spirit said my awakening would coincide with the beginning, but what part of the beginning, exactly? Would it be during the bombing mission that opens the adventure? Would it be after that, or even in the days that lead up to it? Obviously it's not more than a day after; the plate hasn't crushed the slums, yet. In any case, traffic between Sectors seems to be as rare a thing in reality as it was in the game; I don't see a single person going in or out, let alone passing through the park, which affords me the perfect opportunity to take inventory of my Survival Kit.

Everything made the transition with me: food, drink, clothes, games, the works. Now, first step: don't get my ass robbed. Because that could turn out _very _badly, what with the cataclysmic future knowledge tucked away in my backpack and all.

Getting into Sector Seven was relatively simple; it turns out that the massive gateway is just for things like chocobo-drawn carriages and such. There's a smaller door off to the side, half-hidden in a little alcove made of assorted debris. I guess the pre-rendered camera shot in-game was just taken at a bad angle, or maybe the environmental designs aren't a _hundred _percent accurate. At first I find myself in completely unfamiliar territory, and wonder if maybe I'm in the wrong sector after all... then I remember that Sector Seven _can't_ just be as big as that one little bunch of houses clustered around the bar. So, keeping half an eye out for undesirables, I start my trek through the winding forest of ghetto, looking hither and thither for familiar landmarks as I go.

Finally I see one in the distance: I'm pretty sure that building must be the Materia store, which (I'm embarrassed to say) I only barely noticed in-game due to its relatively hard-to-spot place in the town render. As I near it I glance past the building I'm walking around and see the multi-story structure that is the slum's combination weapon shop and impromptu inn (that latter only because the kid who lives upstairs will rent out his room for a few gil). This is the lower boundary of the slums the player is allowed access to in _Final Fantasy VII_, so...

I break into a jog, skirting around a few rough-and-tumble slum-dwellers with muttered utterances such as "Excuse me," and "Pardon," and "Sorry," and stop when the familiar building comes into full few, its sign so clearly legible from this vantage point that there can be now mistake: Seventh Heaven. The bar where AVALANCHE is based. Tifa Lockheart is there... Barret Wallace is there... and (a brief flash of the plate above crashing down reminds me with a jolt) Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie, the three unfortunate members of the resistance fated to die soon...

I step aside and stand against the back of the Materia shop, looking at the bar and biting my lip, trying to think of what to do next. I'm here. It should be easy to figure out what's what without even talking to anyone, knowing what I know, but... the spirit child wanted me to get stronger...

_Whatever you choose to do, however you may... attempt to interfere, make sure of one thing._

The idea occurs as naturally as breathing, of course. Who wouldn't at least ponder the possibility when thrust into this situation? It's the demented wet dream of nearly every fanboy and fangirl who's ever dabbled in fanfiction back home, after all. I've always thought it was a bit stupid, the way most of those self-inserts play out — like, people mysteriously get sucked into their televisions and when they realize they've landed in Chrono Trigger, get all starry-eyed like anime characters and think, _Ooh, I'm in a videogame! I can tag along with Crono and Lucca and 'HELP' save the world all while making little bishi-babies with the tall, dark, brooding anti-hero who just wants a sexy little Mary Sue to love and understand him!_ ...or if the protagonist is male: _...'HELP' save the world while making little immuno-deficient babies with my quarian of choice and throwing Dragon Ball Z energy attacks around and finding out that I'm the reincarnation of a flame god 'cause like, that _totally_ makes sense!_

So, naturally, I think about joining up with AVALANCHE. I need to toughen up, right? And isn't experience the best teacher? If I tag along with Cloud and the gang, I'll have to fight. I'll _have_ to toughen up. I'll have to face Shinra troopers and monsters and Jenova and... Sephiroth. Now if there was ever a benchmark for my progress in this world, it would be Sephiroth. The spirit seemed to think I'd need more than one world's worth of training to gain the strength I need to beat his sister, so if I can't stand up to Sephiroth, how can I hope to stand up to this weird sort of... of people-snatcher ghost thing?

But there are obvious problems with that plan even before the word "go." First of all, I'm a plain, unskilled fifteen-year-old girl. Even if I convince them that my hatred of Shinra is genuine (which it is!), they'll probably turn me away on account of my age alone. If I do somehow get around that, the fact remains that I don't know the first thing about fighting and have no supplementary talents to offer the group. I'll have to learn as I go, which will make me one hell of a liability. I don't have martial arts training or katana training or tech-geekiness or anything, not even basic first aid training. The more I think about my lack of qualifications, the less this plan makes any kind of sense.

And my only weapon is a kitchen knife in a makeshift sheath. A _kitchen knife._

If I join AVALANCHE, the best-case scenario might turn out to be that I'm left behind in Midgar when the group goes out to hunt Sephiroth; the worst case is that I get myself and half the Planet killed because I botch up with the whole future-knowledge thing.

I'm at the point of deciding not to even tough that avenue of possibility when that image of the plate crashing down assaults me again, followed instantly by a flash of a woman in pink impaled from behind on a vicious, too-long katana blade... at the hand of a man with flowing silver hair and devilish green eyes...

I shiver, and wonder if it might be physically harder to walk away from all of that, knowing what I know about the future, about the atrocities committed by Shinra and the madness of Sephiroth, about death and destruction that I might be able to do something about...

I remember what the spirit-boy said to me about this world, how even they of the "between-places" don't understand the exact relationship between these alternate realities and the stories about them that somehow exist in my world. And I realize that, despite being the world of _Final Fantasy VII_ in my own mind, this Planet is every bit as real and solid as the Earth I come from, their pain and loss and sadness every bit as acute, as tragic. That it is routinely trivialized by fuckwits on the Internet in some parallel universe doesn't dampen the scope or horror of what's to come in the slightest.

Even if I can't do anything to make it better, I have to try. With great power, comes great responsibility. And knowledge _is _power.

I take a step toward the Seventh Heaven bar, and toward my new life.

**~V~**

**Author's Note:** There's chapter two, and Katherine Gainsborough's arrival in the _Final Fantasy VII_ universe. As for how exactly that will play out and what significance Kat's existence has for the rest of the _Fadeshifter_ series, you'll just have to wait and find out. Next chapter, Katherine introduces herself to AVALANCHE... and encounters a familiar she doesn't expect.

As ever, feedback is appreciated.


	3. III: Welcome to AVALANCHE

**Disclaimer:** The _Final Fantasy_ franchise belongs to Square Enix, and it's sufficiently well-known that you shouldn't need me to actually say that unless you've been living under a rock for the past decade-and-a-half. As an entirely unrelated note, is it too much to ask that someone out there with some modicum of writing talent compose a decent _Final Fantasy _crossover fic that doesn't revolve around ZOMGSLASH? That'd be great, thanks.

**~V~**

**- Chapter Three -  
**"**Welcome to AVALANCHE"**

**~V~**

Tifa's bar is a small establishment, little more than a handful of tables and a counter with the standard liquor supply behind it. It's actually a bit bigger than it was in the game, and I'm sure I don't remember this place having stairs or a second floor, but there they are. I suppose Marlene must be hanging out upstairs. Probably a good idea, really. Too much booze and... guy-talk going on down here for such young eyes and ears.

I'm somewhat gratified to find that, in real life, Tifa's "ballistics" don't bounce around like frickin' balloons whenever she so much as shifts her weight a bit, the way they do in the game's CGI bits, but still... that first moment was probably a bit of a low for me. I've never felt so... _inadequate _in my life. And by the size of those things, I'd wager half my weight in diamonds that I never will again.

I really hope I get just a little bit bigger at some point. I really, really do.

But let us not dwell on the woman with the unrealistically huge gozongas. Shifting my attention away from Tifa Lockheart, I look around for a clock. I spot one on the left-hand wall and see that it's currently eight o' clock at night. As I move from the door, I shift my backpack's weight further up on my shoulder and pull out my watch. It's three hours off, so I fix that and slip it back into my pocket. The place is actually pretty full for its size; patrons chatting and eating and drinking at each of the tables and one sitting with his head down at the bar. I only know that one's still awake because a moment after I notice him, he lifts his head dolefully from the bar for another sip of whatever liver-melting substance happens to be in the glass next to him. He then allows his skull to thump right back down on the counter and burps audibly, which all patrons but yours truly tactfully ignore. Charming guy.

I step up to the counter and Tifa, who'd been busying herself at the stove (cooking what looks to be steak, which I can just barely smell over the alcohol), takes notice of me for the first time. "You're a bit young to be in here, aren't you?" she says.

"I'm not here for a drink," I say, forcing my voice to remain steady. I kind of lack social graces, you see... and surrealism of this encounter certainly doesn't help. "I'm looking for someone. Big black guy... gun on his arm. His name's Barret, I think. I was told this was the place to look for him. Sector Seven, I mean. You wouldn't happen to know where I can find him, would you?"

A flicker of surprise in Tifa's clear brown eyes is all the recognition I detect; probably wouldn't have caught it if I didn't know what I do about her affiliation with AVALANCHE. She answers quite naturally, however. "I think I do know a guy who fits that description, but if you don't mind, why are you looking for him? A kid like you doesn't seem the type to hang out with a big, loud, violent man like that."

I bristle a bit, not entirely acting, and say. "I'm not a kid. I'm fifteen."

Tifa smiles apologetically and says, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that."

"I know, I know," I say. "I just need to talk to him, is all."

"What about?" she asks.

"That's..." I glance at the drunk, who chooses a very convenient moment to heave his face away from the bar and down the rest of his glass. "That's not something I'm comfortable discussing right now."

Tifa seems to take the hint; at any rate, I can see she knows where I'm going with this, as she abruptly drops the issue with a nod. "One moment," she says, and turns around to continue with her cooking. A minute later she turns back and looks me over again. Her eyes find my backpack, and perhaps because it's so obviously full of stuff, she asks, "Where are you from?"

"Out of town," I say, not wanting to specify a location until I've had time to work out a good cover story.

It seems to satisfy Tifa, because she says, "I couldn't tell you where to find Barret right now, but he should be coming by the bar at around one or two in the morning. If you don't mind coming back around then —"

I shake my head. "No money. I got bottled water and a bit of food in my bag, though."

"I see," Tifa says. "Well, you're free to stick around until Barret shows himself, then. Just mind the customers. Some of them can get a bit... grabby... once they've had a few drinks."

"Gotcha," I say, and I move to sit at the stool closest to the wall. I set my bag down on the floor and plop down, zipping open the bag only long enough to pull open a paperback copy of _The Golden Compass_ with which to pass some of the time.

And then, I wait.

**~V~**

It's actually about twelve-thirty when Barret shows up. He shoves the saloon-styled front door open and lumbers in with a roar of "CLOSIN' TIME, BITCHES! GET UP 'N' GET OUT! YOU DON'T HAVE TO GO HOME BUTCHA SURE AS _SHIT _CAN'T STAY HERE!" and the chaos begins.

Half the bar is relatively smart: they jump up from their seats and scramble for the door, causing a slapstick kind of dogpile-slash-traffic-jam in their desperation to put as much distance between themselves and the crazy black man with the gatling gun where his left arm should be. My lips quirk up and I try not to giggle as I watch. A pair of the rowdier guys near the pinball machine shout in protest, one even going for a knife at his belt... they are soundly trounced, lifted up in one arm each, and ejected from the bar... through the windows, which Barret Wallace slams closed behind them. Then, as the last of the smarter patrons trickle out (Barret's display of whoop-ass prompts those others who might have resisted to join the fleeing throng instead), Barret turns on me with an angry face, but a surprisingly gentle growl:

"That means you too, kid. Scram. You're too young for this place, anyways."

I open my mouth to protest, but Tifa (as she jogs around from behind the counter) gets there first: "Actually, Barret, she says she's here to speak to you." She then promptly scurries off to bid a more civil farewell to her retreating patronage.

"Here t' talk to _me_, are ya?" Barret says with guarded surprise in his tone. "Never seen ya before in my life, kid, and I don' have no bus'ness with li'l girls —"

"Papa!" squeals the voice of a little girl from the stairwell behind the bar.

"Well," Barret mutters, his thunder stolen for the moment. "Not with most li'l girls, anyway. You —" he thrusts one large sausage-like finger in my face so hard I actually lean back and nearly bump my head into the wall beside the bar, "— stay here! I'll be with ya when I'm good 'n' ready." He turns around just in time for his daughter to tottle down the stairs and run at him with the hugest, cutest smile on her face and her arms wide open and...

..._D'aaaaaaaaaaw..._

I can _feel _the stupidness of my grin, I know I can, but I just can't get it off my face! I _love_ kids! And the impression that Barret just happens to be the world's biggest and most badass A-Team teddy bear... It's too much, almost. Somehow I keep myself from cooing out loud, though. Barely. But I do, honest to God I do.

Marlene's giggling and Barret doing the "daddy" thing bring back some really fond memories, memories of the good old days... I remember the times when _my _daddy would come home from work, and I'd run at him and hug him 'round the knees and he'd scoop me up and...

I can feel that stupid grin slip slowly away as I watch, not really hearing the things Barret is saying to his daughter as he troops back upstairs with her riding on his massive shoulder, gleefully kicking her legs as she regales him with an abridged tale her day. Yeah, I remember being a little girl with a daddy. That was a long time ago, though. And really, it wasn't so different from this. I know we were blood-related, unlike these two; I have my father's face, mostly, and his gray-blue eyes. Took after him more than mom, thank God. Mom's a hag. No idea how mom and dad got together, and I almost wish they didn't. Only thing stopping me from actually wishing that is the fact that, well, I wouldn't've been born if daddy'd met a nicer woman.

Hell, it was even sort of like this when it came to his job, too. Daddy wasn't a member of some high-risk resistance movement, but he was a cop in the big city and he did fight his share of crime. I worshiped him, I thought he was so cool and strong and I was so proud to have a daddy like him... and I'm sure I can see that same hero worship in Marlene's face, too. But... then there was that murder case that went bad... I never did find out exactly what happened, but...

It occurs to me then that I don't want to see Marlene deal with that, with someone having to explain to her that her daddy's gone away for good, gone to heaven, that he went down fighting for the Planet...

_If I mess with the timeline, I might be the one who gets her daddy killed._

I freeze in my seat, a nauseous wave of panic sweeping up and down my entire body at the thought—but then Tifa re-enters the bar and I remember to breath. The last vestige of my nostalgic smile is already long gone.

"Talked to Barret yet?" Tifa asks, smiling.

"I think he was about to tell me shove off," I say, "but then the most _adorable_ little girl came bounding down the stairs for him and..." My smile returns. "Oh, he's just a really grumpy ol' teddy bear, isn't he?"

Tifa giggles. "Don't let him hear you saying that," she warns half-heartedly. She then makes her way back around the bar and rummages around beneath it for something, re-emerging moments later with a clean white rag, and commences to clean the counter without another word.

I look around, wondering why there hasn't been any sign of Cloud, Biggs, Wedge, or Jessie. Now that I think on it, Tifa was perfectly cheerful the entire time I was here; if AVALANCHE had been on any high-risk missions tonight, like, say... blowing up a Mako Reactor... she'd have been at least a little worried, if I know anything at all about Tifa Lockheart. So have I actually arrived _before_ the first mission...?

No sooner do I think that than Barret comes back down the steps, Marlene no longer riding his shoulder. I also notice that he no longer has a bag slung over his other arm, he must have dropped it off upstairs... odd that I didn't notice it until it was gone. He looks simultaneously pleased and disgruntled. Obviously, I'm the cause of that latter emotion.

"Like I was sayin'," grunts Barret, "I ain't got no bus'ness with any kids, an' you're too young for this place. So you bes' go home."

"I can't go home," I say, getting up from my seat at the bar and trying my darndest to look determined in the face of the now suddenly _much _more imposing bear of a man. "I came a long way to get here, Mr. Wallace. To talk to you."

"It's just 'Barret,'" he grumbles. "Don' go callin' me 'Mister,' that jus' makes me feel old."

"Barret, then," I say. "It took me a long time to find out what I could, and there's no home for me to go back to anymore so..." I look around. "I'm sorry, is this a safe place to talk? Maybe we should keep this private."

"Ain' nothin you could have to say to me that you can't say to Tifa," says Barret firmly.

"Oh — Tifa, is it?" I ask, glad to finally have an excuse to call her by name. Tifa looks up from wiping the counter and nods. "So you're... part of this, too, then?"

"I thought you might be here about AVALANCHE," she sighs. Tifa finishes wiping down the counter as Barret does a double-take between me and the barmistress.

"How d'ya know about AVALANCHE?" he snarls in a low, threatening voice... I flinch at the sound of it, and again (harder still) when he raises his gun arm threateningly. "How'd you find us, huh?"

"I only got a tip that a man named Barret Wallace in Sector Seven would be the person to go to if I wanted to join up! That's all, I swear!" I stammer, almost squeak, somehow willing myself not to back down in the face of that... big, massive, _deadly _gatling gun, _PLEASE GET THAT OUT OF MY FACE! _I scream silently. I'm feeling a bit light-headed, now...

"...Who gave ya the tip, huh?" growls Barret.

"An old man I met up on the Plate, I don't know his name!" I blurt out, the first lie that pops into my head. "Look, I just want to do something to fight Shinra! So I came here looking for someone who might know how I could join AVALANCHE! It took me forever just to find out this much!"

Barret grunts, and blessedly, lowers his gun-arm.

"Well, I got nothin' to say to you, kid," he says. "Go home. Come back in five or six years. I ain't recruitin' no high school girls."

"I'm not a _kid_," I protest, but Tifa cuts across me.

"Can you even fight?" she asks.

"I can learn," I snarl. At Tifa's sad smile, I force myself to calm down. "And... and I can help out in other ways if you don't want me to fight just yet... look, I can't just sit around and do nothing after what Shinra did to Banora! I can't!"

This was the angle I decided to go with while I was waiting... it's one that works in a lot of fanfics, anyway, and the story behind it is true.

Barret's face darkens and he exchanges a significant look with Tifa. The barmistress looks momentarily startled, and then asks, "Wait, you know what happened to Banora?"

"Yeah," I mutter. "Yeah, I do, but it took me a long time to find out what I did. Long story short, one of Shinra's First Class SOLDIER elites went off the deep end and Shinra bombed the place to hell and gone to cover up his involvement. Genesis Rhapsodos, ever heard of him? They say he was one of the only people General Sephiroth ever called a friend."

At the mention of Sephiroth, Tifa's eyes widen and she asks, in a trembling voice, "How... did you survive?"

"By not being there at the time," I answer truthfully, and then, drifting back into the realm of lies: "Daddy and me, we went back to the village after going to visit some of his friends in Mideel, and the town was just gone. I only learned what really happened a few months ago."

"How did you find out?" Tifa asks, before Barret can properly form a ruder version of the same question. Fortunately, I'd already thought up an answer for the question.

"There was this former SOLDIER guy," I say, "said he was a First when he worked for Shinra. I remember there used to be a little fan club for him. Not as big as the ones for Sephiroth or Genesis or Angeal Hewley, but it was there. His name was Zack... something, I think. Blue eyes, spiky black hair. Really big sword." A flicker of recognition in Tifa's eyes gives away her knowledge of the man. "He was on the run from Shinra with a friend, wouldn't tell me why, but I did manage to guilt-trip him into telling me what happened to Banora. It turns out he was the SOLDIER they sent to the village to track down Genesis." I sigh. "I hope he's still alive... Shinra was trying pretty hard to take him and his friend down, though."

"An ex-SOLDIER on the run? I don't buy it," grunts Barret, but Tifa puts in:

"I know who she's talking about, Barret." Her voice is slightly hollow as she says it.

Barret glances at Tifa in surprise. "You do?"

"Yes," she says. "I met him while he was still working with Shinra, about five years ago. I'm... surprised he's still alive."

_He's not,_ I think. _Or maybe he is... and is fated to die soon. I doubt I woke up here early enough in the timeline to change that, though._

It occurs to me now that my cover story requires me to have witnessed Cloud in his struck-senseless-with-Mako-addiction phase. That could be... useful, actually. I wonder if there are any other ways I can use my cover story to sneak in hints about vital shit like that? If I can use this to help Tifa figure out what's up with Cloud before they reach the Northern Cave for the first time...

"So..." Barret says, "so... your village got destroyed. An' you want payback. That about right?"

"Not just payback," I say, sounding affronted by the idea but more peeved by the condescending tone in which he said it. I mean, really, Barret is the _last_ person I need that lecture from. "Shinra is a menace, pure and simple. Banora isn't even the only town they've screwed over. I've been to North Corel 'cross the sea —" (Barret stiffens momentarily) "— and I found out that Shinra burned down a whole village there just because they _suspected_ they were harboring rebels. And then there's Nibelheim —" (a bit of the color drains from Tifa's cheeks) "— which looks normal enough, but I've done some poking around, and it turns out the village was burned down five years ago. You know what _Shinra_ did?"

Tifa is paying rapt attention now, and Barret looks back and forth between me and her as if puzzled by her sudden attentiveness.

"They _rebuilt _the town and installed a whole village's worth of 'citizens' to live there and pretend like nothing ever happened. The village was burnt down by one of _their _SOLDIERs and they _covered it up_ so that no one would ever find out what happened there."

"They did _what_?" Tifa breathes, and I think she might be clenching her fists under the bar because her _jaw _is awful tight right now.

"Tifa, what —?" Barret begins, and Tifa immediately answers him.

"I _lived_ in Nibelheim, Barret," she snaps, "I lived there, I was there when Sephiroth came and I was there when he burned it down and I was _there _when he murdered my father and Shinra is just... just..." Tifa closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and slaps the rag down on the counter. Her tone is calm and level when she says: "I'm going out. I need to punch something."

Without a word, Barret and I follow Tifa with our eyes as she strides to the exit and walks out of the bar, leaving the saloon-style door swinging violently in her wake.

Barret eyes me dolefully and says, "Awright, you've made your case. Welcome to AVALANCHE, new girl. But you ain't fightin' til we know you can fight, got it? 'Til then you're stayin' here and watchin' Marlene for me."

I nod and say, "Yeah... sure, Barret. I can work with that." I glance at the door and say, "Will she be okay? I... didn't know she would take that stuff about Nibelheim so personally."

Well, it's at least half-true. I expected her to care, but not to blow up or anything. She didn't seem as affected by it when she went there in the game... but... maybe her anxiety over Cloud's absence at the moment made it harder to take?

Barret shrugs and says, "Tifa's a tough woman, she'll be fine. I'll have Kid check on her when she gets back."

My eyes snap to Barret and I exclaim with a little more surprise in my voice than is strictly wise: "Kid?"

"Yeah, I'll introduce ya to the others when they get back," says Barret, apparently not noticing the puzzlement brought on by the unfamiliar (or familiar?) name. "There's six of us: me, Tifa, Biggs, Wedge, Jessie, and Kid. The other four are out gettin' supplies for our first big mission. Might not get back for another day or two. 'Cept Kid, that is; she said she'd be back by tonight come hell or high water." Barret chuckles and stands up. "An' I believe her. That one's feisty. No one better for 'requisitioning' stuff that Shinra don' want common folk to have. C'mon, I'll show ya how to get into the hideout. No one goes in or out during business hours, though — make sure you remember that!"

Barret, of course, strides over to the pinball machine, but before he can work the mechanism that activates the hidden elevator, a loud, feminine voice sounds from the entryway:

"Oi, Barret! What's got Tifa's knickers in a twist? Bugger, but she stormed past like tits on murder, wouldn't even _look _at me..."

I blink, unable to look up. No. No _way _is that possible. But then I hear the gentle patter of little feet from the direction of the staircase and Marlene's joyful cry of "Sis, you're home!" and I can't stop my eyes from following Marlene from the top of the stairs to the bottom and then from the back of the bar to the entrance, where the newcomer now stands. The woman gets down on her knees and catches Marlene in a tight hug.

Barret, who looked up at woman's call, glances at me and chuckles, "Speak o' the devil. New girl, meet Kid. And that's my daughter, Marlene."

I can only stare. The outfit is different, but similar: a modernized version of the red-and-white short-skirt-and-bellyshirt combo that I know so well from the heroine in _Chrono Cross. _She's a lot more live-action than I'm familiar with, but those large, blue eyes and that distinctive golden-blonde sectioned ponytail, those white patches on her cheeks... and that accent. There's no mistake, no mistake at all.

"Um... hi," I get out at last, "I'm, uh, Katherine. You can call me Kat or Kathy, if you want."

Kid looks up and says, "Pleased to meetcha, Kat!" She ruffles Marlene's hair as she stands up, and Marlene looks over at me... then scurries to hide behind Kid's bare legs, peeking around them bashfully with those big, cute eyes of hers. Kid looks me up and down and then sends a doubtful look at Barret. "Can she even _fight_? She looks a bit young t' be fightin' the Shinra, big guy. Didn't know you were recruitin' outta the cradle."

I splutter out a protest, my surprise momentarily forgotten in the wake of this dire blow to my ego. "Hey! I can hear you, you know!" Kid just waves me off.

Barret looks at me and says, "Special exception. I was actually gonna have you help learn her some weapon skills. You game?"

Kid frowns and says, "Are we really _that _desperate for help, Barret? We'd be better off hiring a mercenary band."

"A mercenary band wouldn't be nearly as loyal to the cause as I would," I say, sounding braver than I feel.

"A mercenary band would last longer," Kid retorts slyly.

"That's enough o' that," Barret says in exasperation, and I find myself wondering just how these two got so _familiar _with each other. "Kid, she's in. But we need her trained up if she's gonna be of any use to anyone. So you game, or do I need to get Jessie to help with this?"

"Fine, fine," Kid grouses, "But if I say she ain't cut out, she ain't cut out, and I ain't wastin' any more time if she ain't."

Barret nods, and says to me, "You hear that, girl? Kid's gonna teach you how to fight. Consider this a trial period. I 'spect cha to give it your all or you're out."

Grinning, I snap off a military salute and say, "Yes, sir, commander, sir!"

"Good," says Barret. "By the way, Kid... didja see where Tifa was headin'?"

"She was goin' toward the Train Graveyard, I think," says Kid, rummaging through a small satchel on her left hip. She extracts a pouch and tosses it to Barret. "Looked like she wanted to go kill some things, anyway. There's all the Materia I managed to scrounge up. Unless one o' those jokers grows a brain, all Shinra'll know is that a buncha their M.P.s woke up in an alley behind the tavern with splittin' hangovers 'n' all o' their money and Materia mysteriously not there anymore. And with their pants down. Drunk men are so _easy_..."

Barret nods. "Go make sure she don't bite off more'n she can chew," Barret orders. "Imma show the new girl the hideout."

"Aye aye, cappy-tan," snarks Kid. "You be good while Big Sis is gone, you hear me?" she adds, twisting around to look at the little girl still hiding behind her thighs.

"I will," chirps Marlene. "Tell me more stories when you get back, 'kay?"

"I think it's time for little girls to catch some winks," says Kid firmly. "I'll tell ya more stories in the _mornin'_."

"Awwww," complains the girl. "Okaaaay..."

And Marlene scampers back to the stairs and up to her room on the second floor.

"Righty, then, Kat," says Kid. "Be awake 'n' ready by noon o' clock tomorrow an' we'll see if we can't make a woman outta ya. You got any weapons or Materia?" she adds as an afterthought.

I blush. "I have a kitchen knife," I admit.

Kid blinks. "Any money?"

"Er... no."

Kid sighs, scratches her head, and says resignedly, "I'll go find Tifa, and we'll get you a weapon in the morning. Might as well put that Shinra blood money to productive use. Get some sleep so you're good 'n' rested when we do."

"Yes, ma'am," I reply with another salute.

"And none o' that military crap," grouses Kid as she turns around. "That makes this merry bunch o' misfits look like it's, gawd forbid, actually _organized_."

Barret shoots her shoulder-blades a dirty look as she departs. "Getcher stuff, new girl," says Barret. "It's time to show ya the hideout."

"Okay," I say uncertainly, heaving my Self-Insert Survival Kit onto my shoulder once more and picking my dog-eared copy of _The Golden Compass_ back up off the counter. He beckons me over and when I'm standing next to him, directly in front of the pinball machine, he backs up and lightly slams his gun-arm into a hidden switch on the side of the inactive scoreboard.

Despite the fact that I knew it was coming, my surprised yelp and stagger are entirely genuine as the pinball machine and the floor around it sink into the ground and carry me into the secret room in which AVALANCHE plots and schemes...

**~V~**

**Author's Note:** So, Katherine managed to talk her way into AVALANCHE, and even laid a possible foundation for helping Tifa get Cloud's head on straight in the process. But how did the female protagonist of _Chrono Cross_ get here, and why is she working for AVALANCHE? Does this bode well or ill for our intrepid heroine? Stay tuned, reptiles and rodents, for the game has only just begun...


	4. IV: Does the Name 'Leene' Ring A Bell?

**Disclaimer:** The _Final Fantasy_ franchise belongs to Square Enix, and it's sufficiently well-known that you shouldn't need me to actually say that unless you've been living under a rock for the past decade-and-a-half. As an entirely unrelated note, is it too much to ask that someone out there with some modicum of writing talent compose a decent _Final Fantasy _crossover fic that doesn't revolve around ZOMGSLASH? That'd be great, thanks.

**~V~**

**- Chapter Four -  
**"**Does the Name 'Leene' Ring A Bell?"**

**~V~**

It occurs to me now — as I lament for the state of my poor, aching back — that I've never slept on anything firmer than my bed at home... and I prefer my mattresses just about as soft as they come. Heck, I haven't even gone camping or anything, so I'm not even used to sleeping bags. So trying to get my daily rest on the floor in a secret room beneath some ghetto bar is... uncomfortable for me, to say the least.

When I open my eyes, Kid is standing there with her back to me, leaning over something on the table I can't see. She glances over her shoulder at me just once as I groan myself awake and says, "Never slept on a cold, hard floor before, have ya?"

"Nope," I say uncaringly, then: "Ow..."

Kid snorts. "Get used to it," she says. "If we're lucky, we'll be able to keep this hideout for a while, but I get the feelin' we'll be movin' around a lot once Shinra knows we mean business."

I fumble in my pocket for my watch and pop it open: it's only nine-sixteen in the morning. No wonder I still feel so groggy... I got to sleep at maybe two or three. I stand up, stretch, and try to work the cricks out of my neck. A glance down at my backpack confirms that it remains untouched beneath the side-table at which Jessie is seen working her techno-geekery in the game. There's a bit more to the hideout than said game portrays, but all the essentials are all here and in pride of place: the main meeting table, the television in the corner (currently off), Jessie's workstation and Barret's big old punching bag. Sashaying over to the table, I see that what Kid is studying appears to be a map or schematic of some kind.

"What's this?" I say, but I think I recognize a bit of the terrain on display here...

"Schematics," Kid says. Hmph. Well, duh...

"Schematics of where?" I ask.

"A Shinra facility," she says petulantly.

"Which _specific _Shinra facility?"

"Now, Kat. If we went bandyin' about our missions to every newbie who managed to earn our trust for two hours at a stretch, we wouldn't be much of a shadow organization, would we?" Kid says, glancing up at me with an annoyed expression.

"Point taken," I say. Then I look around. "Where's Barret?"

"Upstairs," Kid says. "He sleeps in a room up by Marlene's. Well, more of a closet, really, but at least he gets a cot. Ah, the privileges of rank."

Nobody else is down here in the hideout right now; it's just me and Kid. Kid returns to her schematics and I'm left to stand there like an idiot for a bit, just staring at her and wondering how I should approach this. Is this really the same Kid from _Chrono Cross_, or is it some kind of weird coincidence? She dresses the same... has the same kind of curved dagger on the front of her belt, albeit one of obvious _Final Fantasy _manufacture (it has a faintly-glowing yellow orb embedded in the base of the hilt that can only be a Command Materia), in the same purple sheathe with the same sort of "Venus" symbol painted on. She even has that necklace of purple... um... whatever those are...

I turn around, lean against the side of the table, and in a moment of cosmic inspiration, blurt out, as casually as I can: "So, Kid, I'm wondering... have we met before? Like, somewhere _else_?" I try to make the word seem as significant as I can without being obvious about it, but Kid doesn't react at all. "I feel like I might know you from somewhere."

"Can't say we have," Kid answers, without looking up.

"You sure? 'Cause I can't shake this feeling that I've seen you somewhere before..." I trail off, pretending to think, and then say, "Say, does the name 'Leene' ring a bell?"

Kid snorts, shakes her head, and says, "That's not even —"

And she stiffens. Oh, dear, it looks like she caught the reference I was going for.

"...funny," she finishes her last statement in a murmur, then looks up, her eyes narrow. "How the bloody hell do _you _know about Leene's Bell?" She straightens up and turns slowly toward me. Her eyes then widen in hopeful comprehension. "Are ya from _my —_"

The half-deafening sound of grinding gears cuts through her question before she can finish it, and both of our heads snap up in the direction of the hideout's secret entrance. Down comes the pinball machine, and leaning against it, a woman clad in what look to be worn fatigues and light body armor, a red bandana tied around her forehead above eyes half-lidded with lack of sleep.

"Jessie!" exclaims Kid. She shoots me a quick look that clearly says, _We'll be talking about this later!_ and steps over to the descending elevator. Jessie raises arm to greet Kid and opens her mouth, possibly to eject some iteration of "hello," but all that comes out is a long, wide yawn that actually makes _me_ yawn rather ungracefully in response... dammit.

"H-h-h-heya, Kid," Jessie forces out on the tail end of her yawn. "How'd it go on your end?"

"Heh. Do ya even have to ask?" Kid laughs. "You?"

"Well," sighs Jessie, "our source on the inside managed to get the access codes to the dead drop, but..."

Kid's grin fades off her face. "But...?"

"...Did you see the Shinra Times this morning?" Jessie says forlornly, dragging her feet to her workstation and slumping into the chair. "'Attempted espionage at Shinra thwarted...' Kid, they're all dead. Every last one of 'em. It took us ages just to get a few of Shinra's guys on our side and every last one of them, gunned down for a couple of lousy access codes." Jessie closes her eyes and puts her head in her arms on the desk. "The only good thing is that it doesn't look like Shinra knows exactly what they took, or that one of them managed to get it to us. So at least their deaths aren't in vain, but..."

"You're regrettin' dragging them into it," Kid says reasonably. "Can't say I blame ya, mate, but they knew what they were gettin' into. You made sure they did when you talked 'em into it."

"I know, I know," says Jessie, her voice muffled by her arms. "Still not gonna sleep any easier today..." Then, as if only just then noticing the third person in the room, she sits up and whips her head around so fast I'd can almost swear I heard it crack. "Who're you?"

"Oh, right," Kid says, clapping a hand to her forehead. "You haven't met the newbie yet." She grabs my arm and unceremoniously yanks me forward. "Kat, meet Jessie. Jessie, meet Kat."

Jessie blinks a few times, stares at my face for a bit, then frowns at Kid. "Newbie —? You mean, Barret _recruited _this _teenage girl_? What's he thinking? This isn't some high school chess club —!"

"Hey," I groan. "Enough about my age, already. I want to make a difference fighting Shinra just as much as any of you, damn it..."

Jessie looks back at me doubtfully and says, "Can you even _fight_?"

"No," Kid answers with mock cheer, and I feel my face start to burn as Jessie buries her face in her hands and starts muttering about how we're sacrificing minors to the cause now, too. Unable to formulate a compelling response, I kneel down next to my bag and open it up, rummaging until I decide on a decent outfit to wear. I also pull out the little plastic bag that contains soap and shampoo (nothing especially "feminine" there otherwise, you know, apart from certain essentials). As an afterthought, I pull out my PS Vita... which contains, among many other things, digital copies of _Final Fantasy VII_, _Chrono Trigger_, and _Chrono Cross_.

"I'm gonna go..." I mumble, then, realizing I don't know where the bathroom is, I look at Kid and say, "Where can I get a shower around here?"

"Upstairs, first door on the left," answers Jessie before Kid can — good thing, too, because it looks like Kid is about to object. "Just make it a quick one. The hot water runs out fast down here."

I understand "down here" to mean "beneath the Plate." So add that to the growing list of Reasons Why Life In the Slums Sucks Ass... the scenery, the dirt, the architecture, the smell... the lack of hot water. I love this place already, I really do.

"Right, thanks," I say. As I hit the switch that sends the elevator back up to ground level, Kid calls after me:

"You come get me when you're done, got that? You and me are goin' out to get you that weapon the moment you're ready to leave!"

Of course, I realize, she's more interested in asking me just how the bloody buggering hell I know about a monument from _her _world than she is in getting me ready for action...

**~V~**

I spend most of my very short time in the shower going over what I should and should not say to Kid. It occurs to me as I consider the problem before me that I don't know exactly from what point in time Kid left the _Chrono_ universe. Oh, God, that could be a problem. She's kind of important over there... like, super-important. Like, the-only-reason-Serge-survived-long-enough-to-notice-that-girls-have-really-cute-boobies important. Would her being here prevent her from going to the past in order to rescue Serge from that panther demon? ...It just might...

Well, that's why I brought out the PS Vita. I just have to figure out a way to word the explanation that accompanies my proof so that Kid doesn't blow a gasket. But then, maybe I'm over-thinking this...

I towel off my hair and get dressed, bundling up my first outfit to pack it away for later laundering. I pass by Marlene's room on the way downstairs (the "second floor" is more like a small attic) and stop for a moment to peek through the not-quite-closed door. She's fast asleep, and she's snuggling a stuffed moogle.

_D'aaaaaaaw..._

I smile and pull the door closed as quietly as I can, then run downstairs. Not really to my intense surprise, I find Kid waiting next to the bar, left foot tapping impatiently and her arms folded across her chest.

"Took ya long enough!" she bursts out. I elect not to point out that I was in there for all of ten minutes, which is barely even a quick rinse by my standards. "Let's go, already!"

"Lemme just put this stuff away and I'll be right up," I say, and ignoring Kid's scowl, I skirt past her and make my way to the pinball machine and hit the switch. When I re-emerge, Kid is standing by the door and glaring back at me imperiously. She snaps at me to get my "arse" moving and I decide it best to comply.

Kid leads me in the general direction of the weapon shop, but I am unsurprised when she leads me right past it without so much as a backward glance. I do, however, say something about it.

"Um, Kid, the weapon shop is —"

"We're goin' to Wall Market," she snaps. "Better weapons there. But first, you and me are havin' a little chat."

"Wall Market," I say weakly. "The domain of Lord High Lecher, Don Corneo. Excuse me for a minute while I jump for joy."

Kid snorts. "Yeah, it's not a place I recommend goin' to alone if you got ovaries, but the weapon shop there's the best in the slums. Don't worry. The guys there, they know better than to mess with me."

"I can just imagine you punting Kotch's arse so hard he _literally_ kisses the moons," I say, smiling deviously as I imagine just that scenario. Kid stops in her tracks for a second, bald surprise flashing across her face as I add, by way of afterthought: "Wait, there's probably only one moon here, isn't there..."

Kid starts walking again. "It's like I thought. You really _ain't_ from around here." She sends me a shrewd glance and says, "How the bloody hell'd you know I used to say that? I broke that habit _years_ ago, people kept giving me weird looks 'cause there's only one moon here."

"Let's go somewhere no one'll hear us, first," I say. Mentally, I sigh. Years, she said. She's been here for years. That's not a good sign...

Kid nods. "The playground just outside the sector's always a good place to have a private conversation," she says. I chuckle in response.

"That's where I woke up," I say. Kid seems startled by this factoid, but says nothing.

We continue on in silence until we reach the gate and its dinky little side-door. The gate itself is manned by one very bored-looking man in a booth, behind whom I can see a lever. There's a small cart next to what looks like a ramshackle stable next to the booth, which I assume is where the chocobo cart that Tifa rides to Wall Market can be found. The man glances up at us once as we pass, then ignores us. We exit through the side-door continue into the park.

"One sec, Kat," says Kid as we near the slide, and then, in one graceful leap, Kid jumps onto the top of the dome and turns slowly around in place, squinting a bit as she (presumably) checks to ensure we're really alone.

"Right," she affirms, and then hops down as effortless as she jumped up. She leans back against the dome, folds her arms over her chest, crosses one foot in front of the other, and looks me in the eye. Her expression is disturbingly neutral, and all she says is: "Start talkin'."

I reach down and open up the little carrying case I have strapped to my belt, and extract my PS Vita. "First, a question," I say. "Do they have videogames in your world, Kid?"

The puzzlement on her face is answer enough, but she answers anyway. "Vidya-_games_? What go _games _have to do with anything?"

"A videogame isn't just a game," I say, pushing the power button on my Vita. For one scary moment I wonder if the dimensional transfer may have fried its circuits or something, but it turns on as usual. "Well," I add, "sometimes it is just a game, but these days most games have a lot of story to them. Do you have... plays, or movies?"

"We have movies in _this _world," Kid says. "That was somethin' to see, lemme tell ya. My world has plays and concerts, but nothing more complicated than that."

"A videogame is like a movie, except the player of the game controls the main characters and has to guide them to victory through the story," I explain. I hold up the Vita. "This is a portable gaming device."

Kid leans forward a bit to get a better look, then settles back against the dome and says, "That's pretty nifty, but it doesn't answer any o' my questions."

"Actually, this is the important part," I say. I walk over to where Kid stands and take a spot next to her. "What I'm about to say say is going to sound kind of crazy, but I swear it's the honest truth. Scout's honor and all that. And this, here..." I hold up the Vita. "...this is the proof."

I start scrolling through the menu, looking for the one game I know will convince her —

"_Whoa,_" says Kid, evidently awestruck. "So you jus'... _touch_ the screen? How does it know what you're pressin'?"

"Huh?" I look up, distracted. Then I remember that I've never seen a single touch-screen in any _Final Fantasy VII _game, movie, or whatever. "Oh, right. Yeah, there's some kind of sensor or something in here. I don't know how these things work, I'm not that interested in the hows and whys behind this sort of thing."

Kid watches in interest as I pull up the game I was looking for, and start it up. The intro starts playing, and I smile a bit as the Vita's speakers emit the opening parts of that awesome intro theme, "Scars of Time," and the opening text fades through, and then the intro kicks into high gear —

"Whoa, whoa, _whoa!_" Kid exclaims, roughly grabbing my arm and yanking it toward her. I manage not to drop the Vita, and growl at Kid to be careful, but she ignores me. "That — that was _Serge_! What the bloody...?" And then, gripping my arm tighter still: "That's _me_!"

Kid watches open-mouthed as the intro plays out. Her hand snaps even tighter when a series of images flashes across the screen and Kid does _not_ fail to catch the one of a familiar drawing on a wall of a burning building... bearing the name "Lucca." Her sense of numb disbelief is palpable when the game reaches the title screen and she finally lets go of my arm. I glance at said arm and note with a wince that there are red marks there where her nails dug into my skin.

"What the bloody hell was _that_?" she tried to snarl, although it came out as more of a whine. "You're sayin' your world had some kinda... videogame about me an' Serge?"

"There's one about this world, too," I say. "We're actually standing right at the beginning of it... the mission we're getting ready for, it's the Number One Mako Reactor, isn't it?"

"Y-yeah," Kid says. "Yeah, it is. Wait, you're sayin' this is all — everyone here — me, Serge, everyone back in my own world — we're not real?"

I turn toward Kid, who seems to have bypassed disbelief entirely in favor of half-panicked incredulity (that sort of I-don't-want-to-believe-it-but-there-it-is kind of look), and give her a sharp knock to the head.

"_Ow!_ Oi, what was that for?"

"Seem pretty real to me," I say, internally thanking Noel Kreiss for such a simple and to-the-point answer to that conundrum.

Kid grunts and says, "Alright, then. What _are_ you sayin'?"

"The... spirit-thing that sent me here wasn't really clear on the relationship between these games and their worlds," I say. "He said even they don't understand. All I know is that in my dimension, there are games, movies, books, and so forth that tell stories that also happen for real in other universes. As for which came first — the worlds, or the stories — I really have no idea."

"An' I thought switchin' between worlds with Serge was crazy," mutters Kid. I shut off the Vita and she protests, "Hey, wait! I wanna see more!"

"I only have so much battery power left in this thing," I say, "and I'm not sure yet how to recharge this thing with this world's electrical system. So I'm saving power. You never know when I'll need this thing to prove my story again."

Kid sighs in disappointment. "So... right... that's... yeah. What's this 'spirit-thing' you mentioned?"

"The reason I'm here right now," I say bluntly. "I came home from school and this weird little boy was waiting for me inside my house. I thought he was having me on at first, but then he did magic... and as far as I know, magic isn't even supposed to _exist _in my world. The spirit, he said he needed my help."

"Help? With what?" asks Kid.

"Apparently he has a sort of sister-spirit. She, or... it... whatever... apparently likes to take people from their home worlds and drop them off in other universes just to see what they do when they get there. There was a guy in my town who died a few weeks before I got here... nobody could figure out what killed him. Like he was perfectly healthy and just decided to keel over anyway. The spirit said that was his sister's work. He wants me to help stop her."

"You?" echoes Kid, tilting her head to one side and eying me with that familiar doubtful look I've been getting _so _much lately. "Why you? Wait, back up. D'ya think this sister-spirit you're after might be the reason _I'm_ here?"

"I dunno," I reply, not really sure which question I'm answering by saying that. "And he doesn't want me to try to take down his sister-spirit the way I am now, I'm supposed to get stronger first. That's part of why I decided to join AVALANCHE." I pause for a moment, considering the second question. "What's the last thing you remember before showing up in this world?"

Kid sighs and lets her head fall back against the dome with an audible thump. "Before I got here," she says thoughtfully, "I was... I was chasin' this demi-human called Lynx. I s'pose you know who that is?"

"The... the one who burned down the orphanage and took Lucca, yeah."

Kid blinks. "How d'ya — oh. I guess that's... in this game of yours, too, huh?"

"Not just that," I say. "You see, your game — that's _Chrono Cross_, by the way — it's actually the second one in a series. The first is called _Chrono Trigger_, and Lucca is one of the characters in that one."

Kid says nothing for a moment, then says, "_That_ game... _Chrono Trigger_, that is... can I, y'know, maybe, see it? Or, play it? Or whatever?"

"Huh?" I ask. Didn't expect her to ask that... if anything, I thought she'd be more interested in seeing what her own future was supposed to be. "Uh, sure. If I can get something worked out so that I can power this thing, certainly. Now, back to my question..."

"Right, we're gettin' off-track," mumbles Kid. She leans her head back again and closes her eyes, thinking. "We followed Lynx to a place called Fort Dragonia," says Kid. "And we — that is, Serge, Razzly, an' me — we fought our way up to the top floor o' the fort, and then... nothin'. I don't remember what happened after that."

"That's in the game," I say, frowning. "That's the part where you guys fight Lynx, and then Lynx uses the Fort's magical gizmo thing to switch bodies with Serge."

Kid's head snaps around to look at me and says, "What — wait, yeah! I think I remember somethin'... he said..." Her eyebrows scrunch together in concentration. "He told me to avenge Lucca... and I asked him how he knew her name, 'cause —"

"You'd never mentioned it to Serge or anyone else before."

"That was _Lynx_? An' _Lynx_ was _Serge_? Bloody — bugger —" Kid pushed herself off the dome and started pacing restlessly, muttering all sorts of colorful obscenities that I'd wager she picked up in her time with Barret. Then, abruptly, she stops and exclaims, "He _stabbed _me! Serge — I mean, Lynx —"

"Yeah, that's right," I say. "You get stabbed, Serge gets sent to some dimensional void and has to escape, and then when you re-enter the story you've been tricked by Lynx into working with him instead of the real Serge. Did any of that happen, or is the last thing you remember Fort Dragonia?"

"Like hell I'd be dense enough to work with Lynx," snarls Kid, her cheeks coloring a bit. "I... no, the last thing I remember is the Fort. Then I wake up in a place I've never heard of before and the rest's history."

"Where did you wake up, if you don't mind my asking?" I say.

"Cosmo Canyon," says Kid. "They said I was found in the wilderness on the outskirts, unconscious... I'm lucky Nanaki found me before the monsters did."

"Wait," I say. "You know Nanaki?"

"Uh... yeah, why?"

"He's one of the characters who joins up with AVALANCHE a bit later on in the story," I reply. "We find him in Hojo's lab up in the Shinra building —"

"What!" bursts Kid. She halts her pacing and spins to face me. "That whack-job has Nanaki? When did _that_ happen?"

"I'm not sure when, exactly, I just know it was covered in that prequel mobile phone game that never got released in my country. But he's fine, we'll get him out and as far as I know he never suffers any complications because of Hojo's experiments."

Kid is flexing her fingers like she's itching to find a bitch and choke it... probably a bitch in a white labcoat who happens to head up the Shinra Science Division. When she finds her voice again, she says, "How much longer 'til we get him out?"

"Not much longer, actually," I say, "but there's something else we need to figure out first... after the Number One Reactor, we're bombing Number Five, right?"

"I think that's the plan," Kid says. "Why?"

"Because after that mission, Shinra's going to figure out which sector we're based in," I say grimly, "and drop the entire Sector on our heads to get rid of us. And then they'll blame it on AVALANCHE and use it as a publicity stunt."

I was expecting disgust and disbelief, but Kid merely pinched the bridge of her nose and groaned, "Y'know, Kat... after what went down in Corel, I have no trouble believin' that."

"You know about Corel, do you?"

"_'Course_ I know about Corel, I was there when they burned it down!" says Kid, waving a hand carelessly as if it were a matter of little import. "It's how I met Barret for the first time... he's from there, lost his arm when it happened. I s'pose you know about _that_, too?"

"It... comes up, when the story gets to the Gold Saucer," I say, vaguely. Kid shakes her head.

"So, you're sayin' Shinra'll drop the plate..." Kid mutters. "Crikey, we gotta stop 'em —"

"Wait, Kid," I say. "I'm all for saving lives, but if events don't play out in a certain way, we might not win this thing."

Kid's eyebrows shoot up. "You sayin' we beat the Shinra at the end of all this?"

"Not just the Shinra," I say. "I mean, them too, but there's someone worse. Sephiroth. He's the main antagonist of the story..."

"I thought that guy was dead."

"Sephiroth has a nasty habit of coming _back _from the dead," I say with a humorless chuckle. "Look, I know this is a lot to ask, but I want you to trust me on this... the only safe way to stop Sector Seven from falling is to let things play out on their own, at least until a certain point."

"D'you have _any _idea how many lives you'd be throwin' away if that goes bad?" Kid asks through gritted teeth.

"No more than I'd be throwing away if I did nothing," I say. I look at the ground and realize I've started twisting my fingers around in my hands. I force my arms to my sides in defiance of that nervous twitch. "If I screw up the timeline, though... I could be responsible for a lot _more _death."

I pull my eyes up from the ground and look at Kid, who's looking at me with that same doubtful, critical look everyone's been giving me since I got here.

"Kid," I say. "Have you ever heard of the Black Materia?"

"No," she answers, surprised by the unexpected question. "What's that?"

"It's an ancient and extremely powerful Materia that the Cetra sealed away in a temple. It summons Meteor, the most destructive spell in the world... a great ball of rock that forms in orbit around the Planet and eventually falls from the sky. That's what Sephiroth is going to do, Kid: summon Meteor. If AVALANCHE isn't in the right place at the right time, if we don't wind up chasing after him to find out what he's up to, we're not going to be in the right place at the right time to do something about it."

I take a few steps toward Kid, who still looks doubtful but seems to be considering the implications.

"We can stop him, Kid — maybe even keep things from going as far down the crapper as they do in the original timeline... but only if things go a certain way. Maybe we can... mitigate the damage that occurs on the way there, but if we _change_ too much, we could _screw things up_ too much. And then not only will my future knowledge be useless, but there'll be no way to guarantee that we win at all, let alone as gracefully as we would've done."

"Urgh," growls Kid. "Alright, alright... we'll do it your way. But don't go doin' anything big without givin' me some warnin' first, you hear me?"

All this tension that I didn't even know I was feeling just seems to melt away at the order. "I got it, Kid... and thanks. I'm not sure I have what it takes to handle this on my own, anyway."

"Well, not _yet_, anyways," Kid says, her serious face giving way to a cocky smirk. "You will when _I'm _done with ya, though. Now let's get on over to Wall Market and see what flavor of kick-arse suits you best, shall we?"

**~V~**

**Author's Note:** So, Katherine has successfully brought Kid on board for her timeline-altering shenanigans, not to mention as her personal trainer. What havoc will these two outworlders wreak? Only time will tell...


End file.
